<p>Like I said, I don't think anybody disputes that the WU Medical School is a killer medical school that attracts cracker-jack students.</p>
<p>But the context of this thread is the UG school, and so we should be restricting ourselves to only that.</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>I think that is what I did in post #40. WashU produced a Rhodes Scholar and a Marshall scholar this FROM THEIR UG PROGRAM. Give credit where credit is due...to them, first and formost and then to their professors and the school's support system.</p>
<p>I don't think one rhodes scholar or access to an internship means WashU isn't overrated. Any school in the top 25 has a rhodes and a marshall periodically and can be said to be helpful in getting internships.</p>
<p>Everyone here understands that the Rhodes Scholarship goes to four scholars each from eight regions? At least, that's my understanding.</p>
<p>So, if you are at Yale, I believe you are competing with students from Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Brown, Tufts, etc. I don't think that's quite the same level of competition you'll find in the region encompassing Missouri.</p>
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Everyone here understands that the Rhodes Scholarship goes to four scholars each from eight regions? At least, that's my understanding.</p>
<p>So, if you are at Yale, I believe you are competing with students from Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Brown, Tufts, etc. I don't think that's quite the same level of competition you'll find in the region encompassing Missouri.
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</p>
<p>Well, actually, it's more complicated than that. Candidates are free to choose their home state as their 'district', and many do. Take District 10, which encompasses Illinois and Indiana. Each district is allowed to select 2 winners. This year, both winners from District 10 go to Harvard. Harvard also had a winner each from District 7 (Alabama/Florida/Tennessee), District 5 (Kentucky/Maryland/DC/West Virginia), and District 14 (Iowa/Montana/NDakota/SDakota/Oklahoma/Nebraska), in addition to one from District 2 (Massachusetts and New Jersey). </p>
<p>So while I agree that WU gets some sort of advantage from being located in a relatively weak district, other schools garner an advantage by pulling in the best students from across the country, including those students who reside in relatively weak districts. </p>
<p>And besides, note that the districts are not contiguous. Even if candidates were restricted to the geographical location of their school, the competition is less intense than you have made it out to be. For example, Yale and Harvard are located in different districts. Yale is in district 1 (Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island), whereas Massachusetts is in district 2 (Massachusetts and New Jersey). So if you are at Yale, your district competition would include Brown and Dartmouth, but not Harvard, MIT, or Tufts.</p>
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I don't think one rhodes scholar or access to an internship means WashU isn't overrated. Any school in the top 25 has a rhodes and a marshall periodically and can be said to be helpful in getting internships.
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<p>Well, actually, in this case, I think I have to agree with CopterMom and say that it is a remarkable achievement. I mean, think about the big research-oriented public schools like Berkeley or UCLA or Michigan. Berkeley hasn't won the Rhodes Scholarship since 2003, and before that, hadn't won one since 1989. In fact, since the 1960's, Berkeley has won only 4. This is remarkably low when you consider just how big Berkeley is, with nearly quadruple the number of undergrads that WU has. Just by virtue of sheer size, Berkeley should be winning plenty of Rhodes's. Sadly, it is not. Berkeley has won 21 Rhodes in its history. WU has won 25. </p>
<p>Not that I am picking on Berkeley specifically. UCLA has done ever worse - the last Rhodes being won by 1997 (and only by Annette Salmeen, who won a Gold Medal in swimming at the 1996 Olympics), and before that, hadn't won one since 1973. In fact, UCLA has won only 8 Rhodes in its entire history, a feat that has been equalled by WU in just the last 8 years, which is again all the more remarkable considering UCLA's huge size relative to WU. </p>
<p>Michigan has also had 25 Rhodes winners, a feat now equalled by WU. Again, that is remarkable considering Michigan's huge size. </p>
<p>Hence, I have to agree with CopterMom. It's not just a matter of bringing in top students, although that is part of it. What I really think it is about is that WU then * nurtures and promotes * their students by providing all manners of coaching and advising to give their Rhodes-worthy candidates the best possible chance of winning. Whereas, I know at Berkeley, if you want to win the Rhodes, it's all you. You are the one who is going to have to package yourself and market yourself. Berkeley isn't going to help you very much. You're basically doing it all alone. Same thing with the other large state schools. I am therefore saddened, but not surprised, to find that the per-capita odds of winning a Rhodes coming out of one of these state schools is rather low. That's what happens when you don't support your students.</p>
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[quote]
Hence, I have to agree with CopterMom. It's not just a matter of bringing in top students, although that is part of it. What I really think it is about is that WU then nurtures and promotes their students by providing all manners of coaching and advising to give their Rhodes-worthy candidates the best possible chance of winning. Whereas, I know at Berkeley, if you want to win the Rhodes, it's all you. You are the one who is going to have to package yourself and market yourself. Berkeley isn't going to help you very much. You're basically doing it all alone.
[/quote]
So true! I think it's astounding that the publics have ANY winners given the built-in advantages of schools that promote and assist their kids. Look at Cornell, for example, at <a href="http://www.career.cornell.edu/fellowships/descriptions/rhodes.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.career.cornell.edu/fellowships/descriptions/rhodes.html</a> which has an advisor, mock interviews, and prep workshops. </p>
<p>At Cal their tips link is "being updated", and they don't even know enough to tell the kids that when they say 4-8 letters of rec you should really have 8 or that the Rhodes program expects to see a detailed list of what you'd like to take at Oxford. See <a href="http://scholarships.berkeley.edu/p-rhodes.html%5B/url%5D">http://scholarships.berkeley.edu/p-rhodes.html</a> and compare it to the Cornell page.</p>
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WashU does a tremendous job of marketing themselves and they have gamed the USNEWS rank to drive applications. But they have not gotten recruiters on board...
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<p>That actually isn't true...there are many companies who recruit directly from there. Others have branches located nearby, where students can get an internship.</p>
<p>It's not like students are lacking opportunities, education, or anything from WashU really...all that it's lacking is reputation.</p>
<p>Oh and FYI, Harvard Princeton Yale and such ALL do stuff to try and mess with the US News rankings. In fact, there are many schools doing that nowadays...So what if WashU is doing it too?</p>
<p>"Oh and FYI, Harvard Princeton Yale and such ALL do stuff to try and mess with the US News rankings. In fact, there are many schools doing that nowadays...So what if WashU is doing it too?"</p>
<p>The question at hand is whether or not Wash U is over-rated, not HYP. Manipulating the US News rankings will not have much of an effect on their selectivity, prestige, etc. </p>
<p>I mean, who hasn't heard of Harvard?</p>
<p>sakky:</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification.</p>
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"What I really think it is about is that WU then nurtures and promotes their students by providing all manners of coaching and advising to give their Rhodes-worthy candidates the best possible chance of winning."
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<p>There isn't as much Rhodes coaching and advising at WASH U as you might think - definitely not as organized as Cornell.</p>
<p>There are sixteen districts in the Rhodes competition with two candidates for each one and if I have my information correct, the districting has been changed over the years to eliminate so called "weak" districts. </p>
<p>Wash U has been considered an excellent school in the Midwest for long before the USNews ranking - It didn't rise to prominence by gaming the ratings. It rose to prominence through a concerted effort of marketing, campus improvement/building, fundraising/endowment building,and by seeking out excellent professors and a higher level of students from all over the country. It's not Harvard or Yale and never will be but that doesn't mean it's overrated.</p>
<p>It is my observation that people who seem to think Wash U is overrated usually have no first hand experience with it and at some level are operating from an elitist point of view that can’t imagine a midwestern school having a higher rank than one of the hallowed Ivies. (Only Northwestern is allowed to be near the top ten without protest - probably because it was on the national radar before USNews rankings started) Comments of Wash U being overrated rose to a fevered pitch in 2003 when it took 9th over several of the Ivies - now that it has fallen out of the top ten and several Ivies have regained there hallowed spots, we don’t hear the “overrated” taunt quite as much. I did notice that Wash U’s peer rating was at an all time high in 2003. Somehow all those peers mysteriously changed their minds the following year and gave Wash U a lower rating - funny how that works.</p>
<p>lizschup, I think that my be the greatest post on CC. When people discuss WU's rise in the rankings they always attribute it to "rankings game" and "marketing tactics"</p>
<p>While better marketing has increased their national recognition, WU has literally spent billions of dollars on new buildings (over 30 new buildings in the last ten years), renovating buildings, endowed professorships (around 130 new of them were created), and implement merit scholarships to attract top students. If people do acknowledge these things, they act like its a crime (How dare WU give out merit money to lure top students!!!!). One of the reasons I have decided to work at WU after I graduate is because I want to be apart of the transformation when it is fully implemented. </p>
<p>WUSTL is doing everything that a school should do to be where it is at. It is building facilities to rival those of the ivies, getting students that is near the calibar of students that go to ivies, improving the student experience by tearing down all old dorms and creating residential colleges, buildings a new word-class and state-of-the-art student center, among many other things. I recently had a chance to speak with one of the deans about some of the projects that are going to be implemented within in the next 10 years and they are pretty amazing. It surprised me that WU has money to do all these things. There has been an increase in research over the last couple of years. Faculty has been upgraded (see the Economics department revival this past year). I can go on and on but I won't</p>
<p>Lizschup, I just wanted to thank you for pointing those factors out.</p>
<p>"If you need someone else to sum up the arguments for you, you're not ready for a top U."</p>
<p>Oh, of course...That's definitely a good indicator of my academic capability. <em>rolls eyes</em></p>
<p>The arguments are because of weaker grad placement and the lack of top-notch recruiters, none of which nice buildings and a faculty upgrade address. Emory and Rice also have a large endowment with great faculty but are weaker than the Ivies in these areas.</p>
<p>slipper1234,
Which “top notch” recruiters don’t take WUSTL students? All the well-known companies are present in every career center fair. Are you saying that a particular field is not well represented?
Did you know how many graduated students apply directly to graduate school outside WUSTL?</p>
<p>None of the top consulting firms recruit at WashU as a core school (Bain, McKinsey, BCG, Mercer, Monitor). Instead you have firms like Deloitte, PWC, and Ernst and Young which are good but are not regarded as the cream of the crop and recruit from most of the top 50 schools. Also these firms fill up most slots for "operational roles" like accounting and IT rather than strategy consulting which is harder to get into. Similarly, in terms of banking you have Goldman and J.P. Morgan but you are missing the next 5 firms. A good list, but not a top ten school recruiting list.</p>
<p>If you look at placement numbers that the top grad schools give out (Harvard Law, Wharton, Columbia B-school, Yale Law, etc) WashU is usually ranked in the top 20-25 (factoring in size) at all of these. This is all the data we have (+WSJ) and WashU doesn't do as well. A lower peer assessment of 4.1, given it IS a research school, doesn't show well either.</p>
<p>WashU is a great school but I don't see why its better than schools like UVA, Emory, or Rice and therefore in my opinion its overrated. If I were applying to college right now it would absolutely be on my list. But calling it a top 10-11 school in my opinion is incorrect.</p>
<p>Ok, you are talking about consulting firms, not the big companies (Boeing, Monsanto, NASA…) Citigroup recruit students from WUSTL, and a few of their managing directors graduated there.</p>
<p>Well, I don't know what's so great about working for one of those big companies anyway. Let's face it. A lot of big companies are not exactly the greatest places to work. GM and Ford, for example, are huge companies that are also struggling with massive strategic problems and are slashing jobs, salaries, and benefits left and right and have been noted for having hide-bound seniority-based and deeply political (as opposed to meritocratic) promotion policies. What's so great about working for a company like that? Citigroup too - honestly, that's not the most desirable place for new bankers to work, as they tend to prefer the bulge-bracket investment banks or, even better, a private equity firm or hedge fund.</p>
<p>That's right, but usually small companies don't go to campuses to recruit students, for that reason I believe that Slipper counts only big recruiters.</p>